Santa Cruz builders at NAHBS

Several exhibitors will represent Santa Cruz County this weekend at the North American Handmade Bicycle Show 2012 in Sacramento.

NAHBS takes place Friday through Sunday at the Sacramento Convention Center, where capacity crowds are expected to ogle custom bikes from 171 exhibitors. Seven builders from Santa Cruz County will demonstrate their design talent. Among them….

Santa Cruz bike builder John Caletti has a lot of good stuff on the way to Sacramento for the show. He’ll enter a gorgeous orange 29er for the Gates Carbon Belt Drive design contest. We can also look forward to an adventure road bike “with room for big rubber;” titanium bars, stems and seatposts; electronic shifting; a disc brake CX bike and a new “Handmade in Santa Cruz” decal.

Bamboosero is Craig Calfee’s bamboo bike spinoff that works to train business owners in developing economies use available materials to build bikes.

People fly from around the world to order one of Craig Calfee‘s high end carbon frames, and at trade shows we can count on him to introduce another fun head turning show bike to wow the crowds. This year, look for his bamboo tandem built up with a Gates belt drive (including a belt timing “chain”) with Rohloff hub.

Josh Muir and his Frances Cycles is my personal favorite. His cycletruck earned him a little attention a couple of years ago, and he designs very practical bikes transportational cyclists like to use. Josh is also a driving force behind the Santa Cruz Bike Church.

Rick Hunter in Davenport, CA has an interesting dirt touring bike he’ll show in Sacramento at NAHBS. It looks like he has some sort of road warrior demolition theme planned for his booth. Hunter Bikes are kind of legendary in the world of urban bike messengers.

John Sadoff of Rock Lobster will have a selection of frames built over his 34 year career, including the very first frame he built in 1978. It should be an interesting history lesson.

Easton Cycling, with world headquarters in my little hometown of Scotts Valley, CA, will be there with their wheels, bars, stems posts and other components that are nice to have when you build a custom bike.